Debora Domenicali
“Madam, why don’t you consider teaching Italian?”
With this question began, quite casually, my adventure as an Italian teacher. Since that day, about ten years ago, I have been passionately dedicated to this activity, which still gives me endless food for thought, a desire to deepen my knowledge, and a constant curiosity about both the language and learning techniques. In learning, as in approaching life, each of us is different: some need clear structures to approach subjects in a linear and progressive way. Others bite the bullet: they haven’t even finished explaining the topic before the next question comes. It is this variability that fascinates me and gives me a new incentive every time I stand in front of my students to rethink the way I present the topic, to reinvent the approach to more difficult grammar topics and, through their questions and curiosity, to discover people and events that have shaped our language and culture. I hope you will join us to experience this adventure together.
I hope you will join us to experience this adventure together.
Short biography
She was born in Imola, Emilia Romagna, in 1968 and studied at the Faculty of Biology in Bologna. She specialised in molecular biology and graduated cum laude in 1999. Immediately afterwards she went to Switzerland, where she obtained her doctorate in microbiology in Bern in 2003. She married the Swiss children’s book author Marcus Pfister, with whom she has a daughter, Sophie Alice. For a few years she devoted herself entirely to her family, which consists of four children. During these years she travelled a lot and learned the German language. After attending several modules at the University of Teacher Education in Bern, she started teaching at the inlingua school. Here, in addition to her teaching, she worked for several years as pedagogical director and trained new teachers. During these years, she also became a CELI examiner and joined the examination board which, in collaboration with the University of Perugia, assesses candidates wishing to obtain the Certificate of Italian Language Proficiency every year. Since 2021, she has been working as a freelancer and, together with her colleague Vincenzo Baldino, has revived the Scuola Dante Alighieri in Bern. In the same year, she became a member of the organising committee of the Arte e Cultura Bern association, which works to promote the Italian language in the Swiss capital by organising cultural events and hosting the reading club.
Ciao! Thats’me: Enzo Baldino.
I am a language teacher and instructor for Italian language certificates. I was born in Italy, on Ischia, a small island in the Gulf of Naples. I have been living in Switzerland for a few years. However, I did my studies in Italy and graduated in foreign languages from the University of Naples. I have been teaching Italian as a foreign language for over twenty years, both to absolute beginners and to advanced learners. What I particularly appreciate about my work is the contact with people; I like to observe the enthusiastic reactions of the students when they manage to use a new structure or simply pronounce a new word correctly.
In the last few years, I have experimented with online teaching in addition to face-to-face teaching. In the end, I found that it is simply a different way of teaching and learning. And the success of such teaching depends mainly on the motivation and attitude of the students.
My history as a teacher
During my student days, I taught Italian for fun. My first students were my foreign colleagues at the University of Naples and then the students during my study visits abroad.
In the summer of 1997, together with a colleague, I started organising Italian courses for foreigners on Ischia. Our courses were attended by people who wanted to learn the language for their personal culture or for their job, but also by holidaymakers who just wanted to know a little of the local language, maybe even just to order a pizza or a glass of wine.
In 2005 and 2006 I had the opportunity to teach my native language in courses organised by the Italian Consulate in Bern. From 2007 to mid-2022 I taught at the inlingua school in Bern and Thun and during this time I was also responsible for the preparation and organisation of the CELI exams (of the University of Perugia).
I decided to start my own business and therefore left the school where I worked for fifteen years. In collaboration with my colleague Debora Domenicali, I now work in the Scuola Dante Alighieri project, where I can teach exclusively according to the students’ goals.